Portugal budget talks collapse, threatening crisis

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Budget talks between Portugal's Socialist government and the main opposition party ended on Wednesday without a deal, raising the risk of a political and financial crisis in one of the euro zone's weakest members.

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But neither is as good as Cowen's Greek. He was on the News at One droning on in the usual incoherent, slurring, mumbling way only he knows. How in God's name does anyone get a handle on what he's saying, much less make sense of whatever it is he's trying to say.

A national embarrassment who needs to sign himself in somewhere for treatment followed by elocution lessons.

Abortion is an act of violence. Violence demeans humanity, particularly violence against women and children.

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But neither is as good as Cowen's Greek. He was on the News at One droning on in the usual incoherent, slurring, mumbling way only he knows. How in God's name does anyone get a handle on what he's saying, much less make sense of whatever it is he's trying to say.

A national embarrassment who needs to sign himself in somewhere for treatment followed by elocution lessons.

The cost of insuring Greek debt against default rose on Wednesday as risk aversion to the sovereign continued to grow after a series of negative comments, while bonds sharply underperformed German debt.

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Hmmm, this is interesting. The Portugese coalition is falling apart and they can't elect a new government until May 2011 because of Presidential elections in January.

I'm not sure if this is a storm in a teacup or whether the smaller coalition sees a chance for more power in a caretaker government. If the situation continues, Portugal will definitely have to access EU/IMF funds as from what I can see their yields are soaring already.

Perhaps we should now be predicting how the dominoes will fall. Greece, Portugal, Belgium, Spain, Ireland. Yup, we'll be that foolish and looking for scraps when it's finished.

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Not that I particularly care but if I was a Green Party member, I would be demanding an emergency meeting to vote on a walkout from the government. Of course, I'm speaking from a self-centred point of view. I wouldn't fancy campaigning as a Green at this stage. I mean, can you imagine the abuse at the doorsteps?

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Not that I particularly care but if I was a Green Party member, I would be demanding an emergency meeting to vote on a walkout from the government. Of course, I'm speaking from a self-centred point of view. I wouldn't fancy campaigning as a Green at this stage. I mean, can you imagine the abuse at the doorsteps?

BRUSSELS (AP)  European Union governments put up hundreds of billions of euros earlier this year to keep financially troubled members like Greece or Ireland from defaulting on their debts. Now Germany is pushing to let hopelessly indebted governments do exactly that  admit they can't pay and hit bond investors with the costs instead of taxpayers.

It will be interesting to see how they manage that trick. Let me see Ireland, Portugal and a few others default and they think it will be orderly and contained? When someone defaults someone else does not get paid. Now who are the creditors? Keep downing the Schnaps and everything will make sense.